Free Platinum by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Page B

“Fuchsia, sweetheart, I don’t even think he was serious about that. ” I paused and then extended my own sweet offer. “I’ll ask him if you really want me to.”
    “No.” Her answer came immediately, and I let out the breath I’d been holding.
    I still had it.
    “Oh! There goes my other line,” I said, lying through my teeth. “Gotta go. Thanks for the call, babes. It means a lot.”
    “Anything for you, Li,” Fuchsia said. “Love-ya-bye.”
    I translated “love-ya-bye” to mean “die, bitch,” but hey, at least she’d called, and I knew better than to expect anything else. Being popular isn’t about being liked. It’s about not being ignored.
    Moving quickly, I hung up the phone and immediately hit number one on my speed dial. As long as I could get ahold of Brock first, I was golden. No pun intended.
    “Hello?”
    For some reason, now that I had him on the phone, I was having technical difficulties deciding what to say.
    “Hello? Uhhhh…”
    Brock was the only guy I knew who could make an “uhhhh” sexy.
    “Uhhhh to you, too,” I said in my own sexy voice, going completely on autopilot.
    “Oh. Hey, Lilah.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I wrote another haiku,” he said. “Wanna hear it?”
    “Actually, Brock,” I said, not exactly in the mood for a good haikuing, “I was just calling because I found the perfect place for us to have a little alone time.” Content that I’d distracted him from poorly written poetry, I continued. “It’s dimly lit, there’s no one there, and our parents totally won’t object.”
    That got his attention. “Ohhhhh,” he said, and I could practically see the grin spreading on his face. “Lilah.”
    When he said my name, it sounded exactly the way it should have on his lips: Lilah, one name, like Cher, Madonna, or J.Lo. Though, in retrospect, J.Lo might have been two names….
    “So are you up for it?” I asked him, keeping my fingers crossed.
    “Definitely.”
    “Perfect,” I said. “Meet me at the library in ten.”
    “The library?”
    I hit End in the middle of his question. If he thought there was even a remote chance of a library make-out session, Brock would be there. Much like his haikus, his thought process was rather single-minded.
    I stuffed my phone in my purse, threw my purse over my shoulder, and opened my window. It was times like these that I wished we actually had a trellis like teenagers on television always did. Instead, I had to contort my body to reach the closest tree branch. In a move that would have been a lot easier if my mom had actually been home often enough that I’d had to sneak out on a regular basis growing up, I climbed halfway down the tree and then jumped. My strappy pink heels wobbled as I landed, but didn’t give out.
    At the exact moment that I was starting to feel proud of myself for managing a well-executed sneak-out, a cheerful voice spoke up behind me.
    “I can’t believe we’re sneaking out. Is this cool or what?”
    I silently counted to three before turning around to stare straight into the widest, most earnest truth-seeing blue eyes on the planet.
    “Lexie.”
    If she noticed that I sounded less than thrilled to see her, she didn’t let on.
    “Lissy said you wanted to be alone,” Lexie said, “and, obviously, I could see that you didn’t.” She shook her head. “I mean, it’s not even about the way the air got all fuzzy. It just felt wrong, and besides, everyone knows you wouldn’t want to be alone right now.” She reached out and squeezed my shoulder gently.
    A woman with dark hair, red lips, and a very pregnant stomach.
    I let the image wash over me, took it in, and then shrugged it off.
    “So where are we going?” Lexie asked.
    “We,” I said, stressing the word, “aren’t going anywhere.”
    Lexie shook her head impishly. “Lilah,” she said seriously, “that’s just not true.”
    I opened my mouth and then closed it again. It was useless. I couldn’t yell at